Infectious Charm
by 95Headhunter
Summary: An alternate ending based on what could have happened if certain people had used a little more common sense, and certain others used the gift of speech. Very much AU. Mild language and violence. Moderate hints of romance. May contain parody traces.


**A/N:** This is a little one shot I decided to write after I realised I still didn't hate Kendra as much as I should have after her betrayal, and as something of a commentary on how obvious her imminent death was as soon as she turned on you (anyone else appreciate a bit more originality in their survival horror?). Very much AU, and very much meant to be taken lightly. Mostly written for a bit of humour and it's generally pretty whimsical but I like the way it's turned out.

Hope it's enjoyable.

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Isaac Clarke squinted through the glare that now surrounded the satanic looking marker he had finally returned to its resting place. Was that Nicole he saw? Certainly her voice resonated in his ear, but she was back at the ship… wasn't she? The ground shuddered again as the twisted relic shot out another burst of intense red light.

Isaac looked up at the cascading waves, and his gaze settled on the massive chunk of rock suspended in the sky, the remnant of the titanic planet crack that had sealed the fate of those onboard the USG _Ishimura_.

Briefly, he contemplated the futility of the whole affair. How an act of unnecessary corporate greed, a thirst for exploitation driven wealth, had so doomed the crew of the ruined vessel. Sure, it hadn't been intentional, but Isaac nonetheless felt a profound sorrow for all those innocent crewers who had lost their lives trying to make a living.

Isaac's musings were cut short, however. The pale iridescence of the gravity tethers suddenly yielded to the intense red energy cascading over them, and they gave out. Even from this distance, Isaac saw the massive rock fragment begin to descend. Just to make matters that little bit worse, a robotic monotone of a voice came over the colony's speaker system, warning the sole inhabitant of the impending disaster about to befall it.

"Oh crap!" Isaac cursed beneath his helmet as the faint illumination of re-entry heat began to light up the rock's jagged underside. His mind wandered briefly again, and he stopped to consider why it was that despite the facility being completely trashed by the necrotic aliens, despite all the dead and despite every valuable system seeming to be wrecked, the one computer that deduced the colony was about to be crushed by a giant space rock was still working. And where the hell were the speakers? Isaac thought as he sprinted over to a circular room whose sign promised to return him to the landing pad, fatigue and the weight of his RIG making his steps slower than the danger perhaps warranted.

Maybe it wasn't the marker that had driven the colonists insane. Maybe it was that damn omnipresent disembodied voice setup they had going that had done the job. Maybe it was the hideous bleakness of the red-tinged planet's grim horizon. If his struggles on the ship had not been enough, Isaac was now convinced this whole planet cracking idea was thoroughly stupid. Well, perhaps not as stupid as Unitology.

Christ, how he hated that pathetic excuse for a religion.

Isaac heaved himself through the door, and pressed the holographic panel to begin the decontamination process. He let out a deep sigh as the steam – or whatever gas it was that whipped round his suit – danced about in whirling jets. At last, it was over. He could go back to Earth with Nicole, settle down for a few months recuperation and finally have a long talk with her about not saying creepy, vague statements when he was in the middle of a zombie infested ship. Stuff like 'make us whole again'. He understood it had been some time, but if that was supposed to be a double entendre, it was both a terrible one and highly inappropriate for the situation. Truth be told, Nicole had been a little off the whole time. All those bizarre messages… Still, it was hardly surprising for someone to be normal when all their friends and co-workers had been butchered.

The decon system powered down, and the heavy metal shutters that obscured the windows shot up again.

"Shit." Isaac spat as he saw what was beyond them. Kendra Daniels stood beyond them, pistol in hand. Kendra: his trusted crew member, fellow engineer on the USG _Kellion_; a crewmember who had turned out to have a secret agenda of her own all along. It was a shame, Isaac thought. She was far too pretty to be involved in a government conspiracy, and he'd genuinely bought her frequent pleading for the team to just abandon the _Ishimura_. He looked back at the marker, and swore again. Kendra was moving it! What was the stupid bitch doing? Isaac had sweated blood and cried sweat to get that thing down there, and he'd be damned if she was going to undo all that hard work.

"Kendra!" He shouted through the glass, startling the woman who had just opened her mouth. Stuff your monologue, Isaac thought coldly as he slammed a fist into the thick glass. "What in God's name do you think you are doing?"

"God has nothing to do with this, Isaac. I told you, this marker is government property, and I'm retrieving it." She said smugly.

"Kendra, think about this rationally…"

"Rationally?" She cut in with a cold laugh. "I think maybe you should take a closer look at yourself before you judge me. You're insane Isaac!" _Bullshit_, Isaac's thoughts spat venomously. "Watch that message from Nicole again. This time watch it the whole way through."

Where the hell was she going with this? The message was irrelevant now, Isaac had found her. She was safe on the ship.

"Oh shit." Isaac whispered to himself, as the pieces begin to fit together. Dr Kyne had repeatedly talked to his wife as though she were right there with him. His dead wife. What was it he had said before getting on that Executive Shuttle? "Make us whole again." Isaac's internal monologue of swearing became a tirade.

Steeling himself, Isaac replayed the message, ignoring Kendra's smug smile, ignoring the way she placed her hand on her hip, ignoring the curve of her… _Focus, Isaac,_ he told himself, _eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize_. He watched through to the end. And as he saw the distorted, static lined blue ghost of Nicole insert the needle into her arm and go still, his gloved hand went straight to the burnished metal of his helmet's forehead. The day's suppressed emotions came out in a classic facepalm, and Isaac cursed himself for his own stupidity. He had comforted himself in those dark times by laughing at the idiots suffering hallucinations, Kendra included, while he had remained levelheaded – convinced he'd still be laughing when he flew off into the sunset, reunited with his estranged girlfriend. It seemed the joke had been on him. Cursing the marker once more for the sorrows it had inflicted on him, he raised his head and was confronted with Kendra's sardonic smile; the patronising, pitying twist of those perfect lips. He saw the cold stare in her eyes, the same eyes that had looked so warm and full of comfort even on the sporadic transmissions she had sent him.

"I should have known," he said sullenly, all the possible retorts he had considered simply melted away by his own realisation.

"Yeah, you should have done. It's a shame you're nuts, Isaac. I was starting to like you. I guess I'll see you round. Or maybe not" Whether it was the trace of honesty he swore he detected as she said 'like', or his own annoyance at her using the same departing line as when she had first left him to die, Isaac did not know. He simply knew he had to stop her.

"Kendra, wait!" He called. She ignored him and carried on walking. "Think about what you're doing! You don't even know what that marker does, or why the government wants it." She paused, her hands tightened on her pistol and her eyes focused on the marker as its carriage slowly moved down the cargo track. "Think about what happened," Isaac pressed, "we're the only survivors. Hammond, Kyne, Nicole – they're all dead. And you betrayed us, you're going to sell us out for reason you don't even understand. How do you not see what's going to happen?

The evil person in these situations always loses. Always! Fate enjoys poetic justice, Kendra. If you take that marker away, shit is going to go down!"

Kendra turned, slowly she made her way back to the decon chamber and the suited man ranting inside it. Her head cocked, she loosened her grip on the pistol.

"What are you babbling about?"

"The Hive Mind that nutjob Mercer kept rambling on about, the marker's going to keep it contained! If you move it, something tells me that thing is going to be pissed. You didn't see the vid Kyne showed me. The thing's huge; I don't know about you but I'd rather not piss off a massive, murdering monster for the sake of some government conspiracy horsecrap."

"What do you want me to do, Isaac?" Kendra questioned, he gaze straying to the immense, unnatural geological formation rapidly bearing down on them from the sky.

"Kendra…" Isaac struggled for words. _Man up! Now is not the time for messing around like some idiotic horror film actress_. "I don't know why, but even after all the crap you put me through… I don't want you to die! Don't you feel the ominous sense of doom all about this place? Don't you feel the impending irony about to be dropped down by fate? If you move that marker, you'll die. I know it! Every single Hollywood cliché, every single stereotypical zombie flick is screaming at me that the secretly evil traitor working for the government is always going to come to a sticky end."

"Now that you mention it…" Kendra began, her face now a twisted mask of fear, "between the continent about to land on us, that disquietingly empty pit by the shuttle pad, and all the tentacles I've seen waving about, this place is definitely giving me the creeps. Big time!"

"It doesn't have to end that way, Kendra." Isaac pleaded, his voice becoming hoarse from all the shouting he was having to do through this damn glass. Fleetingly, he wished he'd used his RIG LINK to save his throat. Oh well, it was one more grievance he could use to sue the pants off the CEC. "Come with me, I can get that shuttle past the asteroids and we can hit hard burn back home. It's an Executive Shuttle, don't forget. They've probably got a drinks fridge – we can crack open a bottle of wine, see what snacks they've got and forget this whole damn trip ever happened. Just you and me, what do you say?"

"Maybe you've got a point. Maybe the government doesn't need this marker as much as I need to live." Kendra smiled. This was not the condescending expression she had used just minutes prior, the smile of a woman confident in her malicious victory; it was a warm smile, a trusting smile, and to Isaac's eyes it made her all the prettier.

"And maybe I don't a whiny blonde harassing me from half way across the galaxy to come fix all her problems. I was so caught up in all the death and danger that I'd forgotten how demanding Nicole was." Isaac smiled his most charming, winning smile before realising that all Kendra could see was a disconcerting set of glowing blue slits amid a metal skull of a helmet.

"That wine does sound good. The only thing I could find to drink on the Ishimura… well it was, uh, questionable."

"So turn that marker around and let's go!" Isaac bellowed, hopefully for the final time as he broke into a coughing fit.

"OK." Kendra said, flustered as she ran back to the slowly advancing carriage, ignoring the cacophony of moaning and screaming that seemed to be coming from just beyond the precipice. Her job done, she finally joined Isaac in the decon room, and the two watched briefly as once again red light cascaded into the canyon. The moment of stillness as the creature beyond subsided was broken by another vicious quake. The mass of rock was still hurtling down, and Isaac knew time was running short.

_At least I'm not going to have to fight a giant, all controlling necromorph_, Isaac thought as the two ran through a corridor infested with that sticky necro growth that had so irked him back on the _Ishimura_. _I've just about had enough of being battered about by monsters, particularly ones whose evolutionary path seemed to have decided crucial organs were best coloured a blatant yellow! How stupid is that? Well, at least it's not Unitology stupid, I'll give 'em that much._

The ground trembled, as if it were itself terribly afraid of the giant mass of rock about to strike it. _I don't blame it!_ Isaac thought as he tried to steady his hand on the door panel. The two lone humans burst back into the weak, red sunlight as they arrived at the landing pad. Isaac charged up the boarding ramp, Kendra right behind him. He entered the airlock and desperately ran for the cockpit door.

"Son of a bitch!" He screamed, as the horrifying orange glow of a locked door confronted him. Howling in rage, he pounded on the door like an armoured Incredible Hulk. The thought of imminent death coursed through his blood like a deadly, freezing poison and he fought against the rising panic, and the rage at having come so close only to be foiled by a door…

To his complete shock, the door turned blue at his furious touch and hissed open, eliciting a similar sounding gasp from Kendra behind him. Wasting not time, Isaac all but threw himself at the controls and fired up the engines. Kendra stood behind him, her pale hands clutching the back of the seat as hard as they could; clinging like her life depended on it.

The small shuttle rocketed up as its main drive kicked in, pitching violently as it passed through the trail of debris that preceded the oversized meteor. A chunk of rock thrown off by the immense forces involved in the rock's race to its own annihilation rocked the little vessel like a paper boat in a stormy sea. Kendra was hurled to the floor, while Isaac struggled to maintain his balance. When the two were finally able to return their view to the armoured window, it resulted in a simultaneous jaw drop. The continent sized lode slammed into the planet hundreds of miles below, culminating in the searing flash of an explosion lancing out from the ugly hole rent into the planet by its cracking.

Isaac sighed. He sighed long, and he sighed hard. Finally! Finally it was all over. And he'd even managed to escape without an overly dramatic climactic confrontation with an uber-necromorph, _and_ he'd talked the treacherous, beautiful government villain into utilising a bit of a common sense. _That has to be a first_! Isaac thought with joy, and he contemplated demonstrating his happiness with a victory dance. _Eyes on the prize_. He thought, smiling at the irony of the repeated statement and its new meaning, while also reminding himself that a victory dance here would be highly inappropriate, and likely damaging to his chances of success. _The victory dance will come later_, his mind said with a sly smile across his face, _afterwards. Oh yes, it will be dancing time!_

"I'll go and look for that wine." Kendra said with a blissful smile on her face, as Isaac removed his helmet at long last. He dreaded to think how much sweat had collected in there; perhaps he should ceremoniously dump it into space and be done with it. He'd be damned if he was cleaning it after what he'd been through!

He caught his reflection in the window. He looked like hell; there were cuts and bruises all over his well chiselled face. He also needed a shave. He began to lay in a course, and in a sudden fit of mournful regret, he decided to bring up that message one more time, for one last reminiscence.

Nicole's voice came through, and this time he truly recognised the fear in her voice. Guilt threatened to consume him, before he remembered that by the time he had arrived, Nicole had been long dead. It was a sobering thought, and he wondered with a sick feeling in his stomach whether one of the many necromorphs he had butchered had once been…

Bringing a hand to his mouth, Isaac fought down the rising bile. It simply didn't bear thinking about. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glance of what he was sure was a soft movement down beside the co-pilot's chair. He turned to regard it in more detail.

With neck snapping suddenness, something pounced at him with a blood-curdling shriek. Screaming in fear, Isaac raised his hands in a defensive posture. _What the hell!? A goddamned necromorph – here?_

Even as his tired muscles struggled against the unceasing assault, his blood ran cold. He caught sight of the face; a twisted and terrifying visage that still bore the image of the human this monster had once been. Nicole. Isaac screamed again.

"Son of a bitch!" He howled, as the pain in his straining arms sapped his strength. Was this the cruel twist of ironic fate Isaac had predicted? Or was this merely the balance of some malicious cosmic karma? In sparing Kendra from her inevitable doom, had he merely brought it on himself? _Well, if I've got to go, it may as well be an ironic fashion_, Isaac thought, _is it ironic too that a man who enjoyed ironic humour through his life is now going to die in an ironically humorous way? OK, you're thinking way too much for a guy trying to fight off the reanimated corpse of your ex._

"Isaac?" Kendra's voice came distantly through from the cabin. "Are you alright?"

_No, I'm not freaking alright!_

Isaac's only vocal reply was more guttural shouting.

"Oh my God!" Kendra screamed as she burst into the cockpit. Dimly, through the crippling burn of cramped muscles, Isaac was aware of a sudden smashing sound, and an even more surprising spray of cold liquid into his face. Necro-Nicole squealed, and for a brief second her vicious onslaught faltered. That was all the time Isaac needed. Throwing all his weight forward in a last, desperate surge, he throw the mass of cold, clammy flesh off him. He pitched forward as the creature fell back, and his hand fold the familiar grip of his plasma cutter, that most trustworthy of friends – his one true and faithful ally that had seen him through the horrors of the _Ishimura_. He fired once. The report of the industrial tool boomed throughout the tight confines of the cockpit as its lethal energy seemed to singe the very air through which it passed. Necro-Nicole howled in rage and pain as the blast severed her horribly mutated blade-like arm. Isaac showed no remorse as he fired his makeshift weapon again, nor did he flinch as he pulled the trigger a third and fourth time. Blood spattered the walls of the cockpit, and the necromorph's screams died with it as its limbs were blasted away.

His breath ragged, Isaac wiped the blood from his face; some of it was his own, but most of it had once belonged to Nicole. His blood was mixed with hers, a final bitter union to signify the end of what had been. He stood up slowly, trying to ease the pain from his exhausted limbs. Kendra stood behind him, white as a sheet and trembling in shock. He stepped forward, gazing down on the twisted, ruined image of the woman he once loved. His hand was perfectly steady as he pulled the trigger once more, and that hideous distortion of a face vanished.

_I think trying to kill me is good grounds for separation. Good night, Nicole, and goodbye. _

"Isaac… are you…? Are you OK?" Kendra panted breathlessly.

"I will be." He groaned, his whole body wracked with pain. "A good stiff drink, a massage and a long holiday somewhere sunny and I'll be back online."

"Well," Kendra sighed with a tired smile and a wink, "I can take care of two of those."

"Really?" Isaac chuckled, wiping more mingled blood and sweat from his forehead. "I like the sound of that. Which two?" He said with a roguish grin.

"There's still another two bottles of wine in the cabin," She maintained her smile as she stepped over to the control panel. A swift series of commands saw the ship reorientate itself. "And there's your sun." She gestured to the window, which was now filled with the streaming light of Aegis.

Isaac sighed, and drew his hand back up to his face as he sat down. Kendra laughed as she stepped out of the cockpit, and Isaac finished setting in the shuttle's course. With a satisfying lurch, he fired up the ship's slipspace drive, and the craft began its voyage home. Taking one last, shuddering glance at the corpse in the corner, he made his way into the cabin.

Kendra was sat on a couch, her legs curled up around her and a contented smile on her face. She held out a full glass of wine as Isaac shuffled over.

"Kendra… thanks. You saved my life back there."

"Least I could do. I did owe you. Probably several times if I'm honest." She said a little guiltily.

"So what did you hit her with?"

"One of the bottles of wine." She muttered, definitely guiltily this time. Isaac sighed. "Don't worry, it was some colonial piss. I saved the good stuff. There's even a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in there, I say we save that one."

_A girl who knows her wine; this could be an interesting trip._ Isaac sat down heavily, revelling in the sense of finality. He held his hand out to take the wine from Kendra, who pulled it back.

"Uh-uh." She said, "I am not sharing this with a man dressed in blood-stained metal." She smiled viciously. "Strip!" she ordered, throwing all of her well practiced hidden evil into the command.

The smell of the wine still tantalising his nose, Isaac had no choice but to comply. With a feigned sigh, he reached for the first clasp.

_Definitely an interesting trip,_ Isaac thought with a smile, as he looked down into Kendra's eyes, their warmth blazing through once again._ And after what I've been through, I sure as hell deserve it!_


End file.
